Mutt Media | the Daily Bone 6.12.09 "Tagged" – You're It! How was it for you?

One Phish, Two Phish, Red Phish, Blue Phish – just say no!!! Mutt Media’s cautionary TAG tale…

Have you been tagged yet? Well I have and I must say, I did not find the experience enjoyable. It actually happened to me a few times this week alone.

It began with a simple enough email from a familar name that I haven’t heard from in awhile, so I opened it. Basically, the contents of this email were that “Jane Doe” has tagged me in their personal photos and wouldn’t I love to “click here” to see them? Let me save you the trouble if you should happen to receive an email such as this.

I clicked. I was then propelled into an environment where they asked me to sign up, join etc. in order to see these precious photos. By now, my antenaae was up but I decided to play along and join. Big mistake. The program began asking for access to my address book in order to find my friends and invite them to join too, which, as I suspected – was done to my friend Jane too.

Tagged claims to have over 70 million users but I question how many of those have actually opted-in knowing what they were getting into. This week I have been doing extensive research for an article I’m writing on Social Networking and the traffic these sites attract. I’ve read the data and I do believe people have stumbled into this trap and been added to their 70+million statistics, which just serves to help legitimize this practice of phishing.

Ok…I know you are going to ask, so I’ll save you the trouble of emailing me about this. According to Wikipedia, here’s their definition of phishing. And don’t worry – it’s happened to us all!

If you click on the word “phishing” in the previous paragraph, you can get the full-monty definition, it’s origins etc., but here’s the cliff note version:

“In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT Administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.”

So there you have it…a cautionary tale on spamming, tagging, phishing etc.

A quick disclaimer…some may actually enjoy this site and what it has to offer. This post is primarily a complaint about their methodology in signing up new members and siphoning off of your address book.

Oh…and a little footnote. Go and do a Google search on the Harvard-educated founders of the company and you’ll find a few skeletons.

I’m in pretty good company on this one. Just yesterday, Time‘s Sean Gregory called Tagged.com “The World’s Most Annoying Website”. I’ve provided the link, as Mr. Gregory, being the news writer, actually contacted the two founders of the company to inquire about their sign-up practices. It’s an interesting article, so check it out. Since I’m not a news journalist, I don’t have that responsibility. I’ll just say no thanks.

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.21.09 Meet Your Long-Lost Aunt Ida

Google's Logo on 5.20.09

We interrupt our 10 Tips series to talk for a minute about some other kind of technological miracle…fossil exhumation, identification and authentication.

I find it no less than amazing that scientists have released information about man’s oldest descendants – primates. Apparently, about 500 million years ago, primates split off into 2 branches – Lemurs and Apes. The Lemurs were not a pretty species, but Modern Man evolved from it’s cousin – the Ape.

I will spare everyone a lesson on Darwinism and commentary about evolution but I have a picture in my head of Magilla Gorilla with a Blackberry and a laptop…and I’m thinking how archaic the movie The Planet Of the Apes seems now, with absolutely no reference to cell phones or any of the technology we’ve been enjoying and developing over the last 20 years.

I smell remake!

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.19.09 Top 10 Tips for marketing yourself online. Tip #5: Subscribe to News Feeds (RSS)!

Another Tip from Mutt Media NY

5. Subscribe to RSS feeds in your professional field. This will keep you on top of the latest trends, articles and expose you to contacts you didn’t have before.

This is a free service that brings the entire web to your personal computer. Instead of searching out your favorite blogs and news feeds, they will be fed directly into your Reader Account and at your fingertips when you need them. You will be surprised how many people are out there sharing ideas, bartering and feeding off of the World Wide Web of creativity.

You will find an option to subscribe to an RSS feed on virtually all Blogs that you visit. Now that I’ve brought this up, you will notice and look for them even more, right?

A short primer on RSS or, as they are often called, Web Feeds.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a technology that enables web browsers to read content as text. What does this mean for the blogger? Well, that his content will be more easily picked up by search engines and easier to find by the rest of us.

How is an RSS Feed useful? Well, I’ll use myself as an example….My interests (to name a few) are online media, fashion, gardening, and movies. In the online world, lots of people are blogging, but let’s say I’ve found a few that give me great insights and information written in a style that I like. Rather than having to visit each site individually and hope they’ve posted something new, I can subscribe to their feed and whenever they provide new content, it will be delivered straight to my Reader. This way, I can, at my leisure, pop in and read without having to go on a labor-intensive search mission. You can subscribe to as many news feeds as you like; they are only limited by how much news you’d like to get. Gone are the days of bookmarking! All posts will be sent to you within moments.

Think of your News Feed as getting information delivered right to your front door (like a newspaper), only the great thing is that it only contains the news you have expressed an interest in reading! You can log into many of these from any computer so you never have to be completely out of touch, even on vacation. If this option sounds good to you, you’ll want to look for a web-based news feed. Just a few are Google Reader, News Gator and Bloglines.

There are many utilities out there to deliver your news feed right to your computor, too. Some are NetNewsWire (for Mac users), and SharpReader.

So, go forth and subscribe. You can start with Mutt Media! Just click on the tab at the top of this page that says “RSS” after you select and set up your newsreader.

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© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved

Mutt Media | Daily Bone 5.13.09 Ten Tips for marketing yourself online. Tip #1 Clean Up Your Act!

Another Tip from Mutt Media NY

Several months ago I published a document for a lecture I gave at an event that circulated and got some attention (radio, Twitter, etc). This document is called 10 Tips for Marketing Yourself Online. This list was conceived as a tool to help those in search of a new job, whether they are currently unemployed or just looking to do something new.

I thought I would use this forum to share these tips. Hope you find them helpful.

Mutt Media Tip #1

1. Clean up your online act! Take a moment and “Google” yourself. You may be surprised at what you find. You should be aware that potential employers can and will do this as an extension of their due diligence on a prospective employee.

This guideline does not only apply to those in search of work. Anyone who is looking to make a move of any significance – whether professionally, personally or scholastically needs to know that these searches are now standard operating procedure when checking out any applicant. This includes College Admission staff, so to all of you high school students who have social networking accounts, this applies to you, too….maybe even moreso.

Ask yourself if the images posted by you or your “friends” are really ones that you want on the Internet for all to see. I cannot stress this enough! Your pages may look fine but what about your contacts that may have tagged you in a photo that paints you in an unprofessional light? For the time being, take the account down or go through and make appropriate edits – often. Consider YouTube. Your favorites?? Are they videos you are proud to affiliate yourself with or do they “dumb” you down?

Leave no stone unturned and treat your image like a valuable marketing tool because guess what? It is.

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This has been your Daily Bone
© 2009 Mutt Media NY LLC All Rights Reserved